An account of the writing — and reading, and other stuff — in my life by Andrew Cartmel.

Sunday, 9 August 2015

Jurassic World by Jaffa & Silver and Trevorrow & Connolly

Jurassic World had a lot going for it right out of the gate.

Not only was it based on a fondly remembered franchise, not only did it star the engaging Chris Pratt (last seen in the fine, funny Guardians of the Galaxy) but it had a script by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.

On the basis of Rise alone, this husband and wife team are among the finest screenwriters on the planet (of the screenwriters).Well, Jurassic World is entertaining, engrossing fun. And it has highly suspenseful setpieces and some clever ideas (the raptors as good guys!). It is neatly plotted, and superior to the various Jurassic sequels, and in some ways to the first film. And it is a huge box office hit... (Do you sense a "but" coming?)But...Jurassic World begins strongly, promising a film which might even be on par with the Ape pictures, a movie with some real depth. Towards the end, though, it just turns into a routine action flick.

The promise of being something more than that (which Rise of the Planet of the Apes so memorably was) is simply squandered.I don't know for certain why this is, but I suspect it may be something to do with the screenwriting credit for director Colin Trevorrow and his regular collaborator Derek Connolly. No doubt they made substantial changes to the Jaffa & Silver draft. And I am far from certain that those changes were all improvements.I'm now looking forward to Jaffa & Silver's next project, Avatar 2. Maybe that will once again deliver the goods, big time.

(Image credits: All the posters are from Imp Awards who come through again. Yay, Imp Awards.)